Category: Entertainment

An Evening with the Cast of MTV’s Human Giant

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Photo: Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer and Aziz Ansari are Human Giant

Ordinarily, the chances of me going out on a Monday night are nil, especially in this brick-ass cold. But with my television withdrawal giving me an increasingly nasty case of the shakes, I took the opportunity to check out last night’s sneak preview of the new season of Human Giant–the best thing to happen to MTV‘s comedy programming (or rather, MTV period) since The State— hosted by the Human Giants themselves.

As any proper night should, this one began with drinks. Various members of the press (editors and writers from Maxim, the NY Post, the Village Voice, ASCAP, Giant and other publications) assembled beforehand at West Chelsea haunt Half King, along with the show’s stars, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer and Aziz Ansari, before making the troupe to the UCB Theater. Continue reading →

YRB Magazine Interview: Director James Wan

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After making his wildly successful directorial debut with the low-budget horror film Saw, young director James Wan returns with Death Sentence, a revenge-thriller about a family man (Kevin Bacon) who takes matters into his own hands after his son is murdered. I caught up with Wan to discuss Death Sentence and his approach to filmmaking, and here’s what he had to say.

Movie: The Brothers Solomon

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Will Arnett and Will Forte are the Brothers Solomon

The Solomon brothers want to put a baby in you, and goddammit they will, even if it’s the last thing they do. When their dying father expresses one final wish to have a grandchild, Dean and John Solomon (Will Forte and Will Arnett) must find a way to procreate, stat. And it’s not going to be easy. That’s because until now, they’ve grown and developed (or rather, not developed) in the social equivalent of a concentration camp: a remote arctic location where they were home-schooled by their father. Miffed to find that the ladies aren’t exactly swooning, Dean and John explore other options, such as kidnapping (“We were trying to coax that little girl into our car, but her mom’s being a real pain in the ass,” Arnett explains to the police) and adoption (“What is your return policy?”), before they find Janine (SNL’s Kristen Wiig) on Craigslist, and convince her to serve as a surrogate. Written by Forte and directed by the legendary Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show), this late-summer gem has all the right ingredients for comedy gold.

Movie: Superbad

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-Popular Girl: "You know, you scratch our backs, we'll scratch yours." -Fat Nerd: "The funny thing about my back is that it's located on my cock."

Once again, director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up) proves that good things happen when you combine a funny script with funny actors. Superbad tells the tale of Evan and Seth (played by Michael Cera of Arrested Development and Knocked Up’s Jonah Hill), two socially inept best friends and high school seniors who must make the most of their days together before enrolling at different colleges in the fall. With no social skills, less than no sex appeal, and nothing even resembling a cool bone in their bodies, the boys realize that if they want to make it as college men, they’re going to have to turn around their luck with the ladies – starting tonight, on the eve of their graduation. Not to be mistaken for a classic coming of age tale a la Stand By Me, Superbad is about as heartwarming as a funeral. But thankfully, it’s a whole lot funnier.

Movie: I’m Reed Fish

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Jay Baruchel stars in I'm Reed Fish

In his breakout movie role, Jay Baruchel (Undeclared, Knocked Up) proves to the world that Zach Braff isn’t the only geeky leading man who can pull off a romantic comedy without making us want to puke. Baruchel plays Reed Fish, a small town radio personality with a hot fiancée (Gilmore Girls’ Alexis Bledel) and a solid 10-year plan, whose life is turned upside-down when his former high school crush suddenly reappears on the eve of his nuptials. With DJ Qualls (Road Trip, Hustle & Flow) and SNL alum Chris Parnell at the helms, I’m Reed Fish takes a not-so-original story and turns it into a not-half-bad picture.

DVD: Kung Fu Hustle

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Photo: Kung Fu Hustle

What would the late Bruce Lee have to say about Steven Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle? “It’s no Enter The Dragon.” Maybe not, but KFH manages to hold its own – so well, in fact, that it received 26 nominations (including a Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language Film) and 17 awards at a slew of international film festivals when it was released in 2004. Set in 1940s Shanghai, KFH is the story of Sing (Chow), a pitiable would-be gangster with high hopes of joining the city’s most notorious crew, Axe Gang. But a series of events find Sing going toe-to-toe with the powerful gang, leading the unlikely hero to discover his inner kung fu master. If you think Drunken Master beats Rush Hour any day of the week, then Kung Fu Hustle is like the Jackie Chan movie you’ve been waiting for, sans Jackie Chan. Check out the DVD before KFH 2 rolls out in ‘08.

 

Interview: John Leguizamo & Donnie Wahlberg

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Who needs Jack Bauer when you’ve got… Pittsburgh?

“I love Pittsburgh, I think it’s underrated,” says actor Donnie Wahlberg, who plays hostage negotiator Horst Cali on Spike TV’s new summer miniseries The Kill Point, shot on location in the ‘Burgh.

Joining Wahlberg on set was John Leguizamo in the role of  Mr. Wolf, the ringleader of a team of disgruntled Iraq War veterans who decide to rob a bank.

Wahlberg admits that although he is ostensibly playing the role of hero, “You could just as easily not root for [my character]. I think in the end people will,” he says, “but [Wolf and Cali] are two flawed characters, they’re not perfect. It seems like sometimes the choices they make aren’t always great, but at their core they’re both good guys and they make a connection. They’re both fearlessly determined to get their way, and while they respect each other, it’s like a very good chess match. They find that they have a lot in common but they both want to win, they both want to accomplish their goals.”  Continue reading →

TV: It’s Always Sunny in Philadephia

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It's Always Funny in Philadelphia

The little TV show that could, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia returns to FX this summer for a third season. The show–which was picked up in 2005 after a pilot that reportedly cost only $85 to make was submitted to FX under the title It’s Always Sunny on TV–circulates around four friends (two of whom, Dennis and Dee, also happen to be twins) who run Paddy’s, an Irish pub in the City of Brotherly Love. Midget-turned-actor Danny DeVito joined the cast last year in the role of Frank, the twins’ father–or so we were led to believe before it was revealed at the end of last season than he is actually their friend Charlie’s biological father. A bunch of lazy, depraved, egomaniacal liars, these kids are fast becoming our personal heroes, and if you don’t get FX, don’t worry; episodes of It’s Always Sunny are available for download on iTunes.

Movie: I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry

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Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

When the fine print in his insurance plan prevents New York firefighter and widower Larry Valentine (played by Hitch’s Kevin James) from naming his own kids as beneficiaries, he and his best friend Chuck Levine (Adam Sandler) devise a foolproof plan to get around the technicality: They tie the knot, claiming to be gay domestic partners. So far, so good, until a suspicious official starts snooping around, and Chuck and Larry’s personal life is suddenly front-page news. Enter Jessica Biel, the firecracker lawyer who feels so comfortable around her gay client Chuck–who is of course actually straight and single–she doesn’t think twice about getting undressed in front of him or making sure he knows first, uh, hand that she doesn’t have breast implants. A bit of a hokey premise to be sure, but everything Adam Sandler touches turns to gold, and Kevin James’s ass is no exception.

Interview: Perez Hilton

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Photo by Jeff Forney for YRB Magazine

In the age of the gossip blog, if you still subscribe to the belief that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, then chances are you’re not a publicist.

“I’m a polarizing figure,” says Perez Hilton, the self-anointed “Queen of Media” and the creator of the celebrity gossip blog PerezHilton.com. “Some people love me and some people hate me. Some people wanna tell me everything, some people are afraid to even make small talk around me. It depends who you are and how I rub you.”

Every day, close to four million unique visitors flock to Hilton’s site (formerly PageSixSixSix.com) for the inside scoop on the latest Hollywood scandal, juiciest truth-based rumor and even the occasional news byte.  Continue reading →

Alec Baldwin Loses Mind, Visitation

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Don't Cross Alec Baldwin

In a recording acquired by celebrity gossip site TMZ.com, actor Alec Baldwin leaves a message for his 11-year-old daughter Ireland (with ex-wife, actress Kim Basinger), in which he becomes enraged that she has failed to answer what was apparently a prearranged phone call. 

“I’m leaving this message with you to tell you that you have insulted me for the last time. You don’t have the brains or the decency as a human being … I don’t give a damn that you’re 12-years-old or 11-years-old, or a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn’t care about what you do,” says Baldwin, adding that he intends to fly out to L.A. later in the week “to straighten your ass out.”

In a statement released to Extra, a spokesperson for Baldwin didn’t deny the authenticity of the recording but accused Basinger of leaking the tape to the media in violation of a court order. Don’t blame Alec; it’s not his fault that he was provoked to the point of calling Ireland “a rude, thoughtless, little pig.” What else was he supposed to do? After all, he’s Alec Baldwin, and she’s just some snot-nosed, 11- (or 12-) year-old little brat who thinks she can just traipse around the playground, screening her famous father’s calls and being ungrateful.

Way to show your kid who’s boss, Alec. I bet right now you wish you didn’t have the most recognizable voice in Hollywood.

LISTEN TO THE FULL RECORDING: ALEC BALDWIN, FATHER OF THE YEAR

YRB Magazine Interview: Knocked Up‘s Jason Segel and Jonah Hill

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Image courtesy of NBC Universal

“Knocked Up is about a guy [Ben], played by Seth Rogen, who is starting a website, is kind of a slacker, who goes out to a bar one night and is lucky enough to end up back home with Katherine Heigl’s character [Alison], and what should have been nothing but a one night stand, next thing you know she’s knocked up. So it’s the story of the two of them coming to terms with the fact that they’re sorta stuck together,” says actor Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother), who, along with Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel and Martin Starr, plays one of Ben’s four roommates in this summer’s Knocked Up.

Jonah Hill offers a somewhat different take on the movie. “The plot is basically like Letters from Iwo Jima. We actually ripped off the same plot, and we just added a few ‘fucks’ every now and then,” he jokes, when asked whether there is more to the story than the title and movie trailer suggest. But Jason and Jonah (whose characters also happen to be named Jason and Jonah) do agree that what makes Knocked Up work so well is largely writer/director Judd Apatow’s approach to movie-making. Both have worked with Apatow before (Jonah had a small but memorable role in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Jason starred in Apatow’s television cult classic Freaks and Geeks, among other things) and credit the success of his films with the fact that he trusts his actors enough to let them improvise. Continue reading →

Movie: Spider-Man 3

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PHOTO COURTESY OF COLUMBIA PICTURES

This spring, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) returns in the third installment of Spider-Man. In the new flick, Spidey’s suit suddenly turns black, augmenting his existing powers and drawing out a more sinister side focused on retribution and vengeance. As he struggles to resist the power of the black suit and remain on the side of good, he must also throw down with two of his most dangerous opponents, Sandman and Venom. Can Peter overcome the forces of evil that threaten to pull him away from his family and his dreamgirl, M.J. (Kirsten Dunst), or will he hold it down and regulate on his enemies? Since this is Hollywood (and since we’re not retarded), we already know the answer, but with Tobey Maguire dancing around in a glorified leotard, Spider-Man 3 is like watching a demented version of Billy Elliot with high-budget special effects and action sequences. In other words, it’s worth it.

Movie: Evan Almighty

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Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

We first met Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) in 2003’s Bruce Almighty, in which he played Bruce’s (Jim Carrey) office rival at a local Buffalo, N.Y., television station. When Bruce lost his job to Evan, he blamed God, prompting the Almighty Himself to come down from the heavens to teach Bruce a lesson. Now, Evan is a United States congressman, and he’s about to get his very own visit from God (Morgan Freeman). And what does God want with Evan, pray tell? It’s pretty standard, really; He wants Evan to build an ark in anticipation of a great flood and He won’t take no for an answer. Thus it is that Evan becomes the modern counterpart to Noah, as he sets about building an arc, much to the dismay of his wife and kids. Co-starring John Goodman, Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls), Jonah Hill (Knocked Up; The 40-Year-Old Virgin) and Daily Show correspondent Ed Helms (not to mention a variety of elephants, giraffes and other members of the animal kingdom), Evan Almighty is laugh-out-loud funny, which is certainly the best thing the Bible has done for us lately.

15 Seconds of Lame: SearchWithKevin.Org

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Photo courtesy of the Kevin Federline fan club (Yes, there really is a Kevin Federline fan club)

Step aside, Google. There’s a new search engine in town, a special search engine, one endorsed by a celebrity. Now, you’re probably wondering, “Is it James Earl Jones? Or Kelsey Grammer, perhaps?” Guess again. SearchWithKevin.com is the official brainchild (hey, at least it’s not another real child) of Hollywood Z-Lister Kevin Federline. It makes sense, really, because who but K-Fed possesses the authoritative, commanding, trustworthy persona to successfully launch a site designed to be a viable alternative to Google? Kevin, we’ve gotta hand it to you – the fact that you actually thought this would be a good business venture is kind of adorable, and it almost makes us like you (where by “adorable” we mean “unbelievably idiotic” and by “almost makes us like you” we mean “definitely makes us hate you”).


WWW.SEARCHWITHKEVIN.PRODEGE.ORG